Share it

Friday, December 30, 2011

I don't do New Years resolutions – I wouldn't keep them anyways. And usually I wouldn't do New Years predictions, either. But this seems to me like a good way to end the year as it will give me something to write about late next year.

So let's start with the obvious: the Giants still won't be able to hit the broadside of a barn next year. Now that may not be something you care about, but for me, this is a really good reason to dread 2012.

Another good reason to dread 2012 will be the continued promotion of austerity – both in the U.S. and in Europe. That any economy can grow through contraction should be an obviously absurd notion. But the Keynesian are losing this battle – so more layoffs and government cutbacks will continue in 2012.

Tech: Apple will release an iPad 3 at the usual time. No drama, no major surprises. It's the way Apple rolls, to the disappointment of many tech sites. It will be a big hit, as it will incorporate Siri and attempt to fulfill the vision of this old Apple video:

Sorry, no 7-inch iPad next year.

Media: Newspapers will continue to construct paywalls, but it won't really matter – after all, they weren't making online anyways, so the loss of traffic won't matter. But the drive to construct paywalls will take many publisher's attention from what most should really be doing: developing new mobile, web and tablet products. In the digital age, having one product, print, doesn't cut it. The market for information has fragmented, only the developers will survive the era.

Too many publishers will think they are developers for hiring vendors to launch their products.

The much quoted newspaper consultants will continue to push for aggregation, low pay, layoffs, and fighting Apple. Then they will return to their classrooms until called upon to provide a quote to a lazy reporter.

Magazines will survive. You really think everyone will substitute an aggregation of links for a well-designed, well-edited, well-written magazine? Magazines will continue to go digital, but they will still be magazines.

Other predictions: The Sharks won't win the Stanley Cup (that was an easy one).

The Prime Ministers of Greece and Italy, both former bankers, will decide to merge their countries. Mass layoffs of citizens will ensue as the combined countries will promise to "do more with less (citizens)." Most of those kicked out of their countries will move to Australia.

A major U.S. computer maker will launch a new tablet, kill it off, fire their CEO, and then bring in a new one – someone that recently lost an election in their first attempt at politics.

U.S. Presidential election prediction: Michele Bachmann won't win. (OK, that was too easy.) But neither will Gingrich or Paul (so that leaves the two obvious choices).

But whoever wins, the candidate that triumphs will be the one that best convinces voters to vote against their own interests, and who convinces voters that people just like themselves are the root of all their problems.

Quick predictions: The NYT hires a new CEO, someone from within the club... Rupert Murdoch lays low, 2011 wasn't a good year... Tech writers, following the iPad 3 introduction, debate who is more boring: Tim Cook or Steve Ballmer... DigiTimes will be wrong, again... Media sites will be undeterred and repeat DigiTimes rumors verbatim... NYC will select Cornell to build its tech campus – ten years from now it will become a business school... Phillies fans will spend the summer bragging about their team (but not the fall)... There will be millions of additional Apple v. Google market share stories... Andrew Luck will shock football fans by joining the Calgary Stampeders... England won't win Euro 2012, but if they do no one hear the end of it for a decade... you will have a great, peaceful and prosperous New Year (don't prove me wrong, OK?)

Here is the conclusion of the year in review series: part one of this series can be found here, part two here, with part three here.

Next week marks the two year anniversary of Talking New Media, a website launched a little over three months before Apple shipped its first iPads, but more than a decade after the first newspaper and magazine websites appeared online.

2011 was a very eventful year in world news, but in some ways it was a simply a continuation of 2010 where media critics continued to debate the paid content versus advertising strategies, and where the gurus of aggregation and layoffs, disguised as 'digital first' proponents, continued to hold sway – despite any evidence that their philosophy could translated into profit publishing models.

The quarter started with an announcement from Dutch digital publishing solutions provider WoodWing that they would begin selling the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, kill off its own file formats, and that it would begin concentrating its efforts on editorial workflow solutions.

"This is the right time for WoodWing to fully focus on its core activities, which is to streamline and optimize the editorial workflow," said Erik Schut, President of WoodWing Software.

Apple's own website tribute to its co-founder, Steve Jobs.

Apple announced the passing of CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs on October 5. His death, while not unexpected, was still met with shock and regret. Many media writers who otherwise were strong critics of Apple wrote with passion about the leadership and record of innovation of Apple under Job's management.

Even today, however, it is hard not to write about those piranhas who have made a living telling media executives to avoid developing for the iPad but who, at the death of Jobs, suddenly become available for interviews proclaiming the great deeds of the Apple CEO.

Later in the month Apple reported its Q4 earnings. The actual earnings reported showed that Apple sold 11.1 million iPads in the quarter, had $28.3 billion in revenue (up from $20.3 the year before) and earned record profits. But because some websites had previously reported the wild forecasts of some crazed analyst, many reports said that Apple had actually had a disappointing quarter.

One week later The Guardian finally previewed its long awaited iPad edition which launched later that same week. "We looked at some of the beautiful, early experiments that people did as newspapers on the iPad – and they were beautiful but they were recreating the newspaper on the iPad," said Rusbridger in the promotional video produced for the preview.

David Carr, the NYT's media writer got on his soapbox near the end of the month to deliver a mighty sermon under the headline Why Not Occupy Newsrooms? The column followed reports of the the huge retirement package given to outgoing Gannett CEO Craig Dubow.

"Forget about occupying Wall Street; maybe it’s time to start occupying Main Street, a place Gannett has bled dry by offering less and less news while dumping and furloughing journalists in seemingly every quarter," Carr wrote.

The always navel gazing world of journalism got its own soap opera story to report, as Poynter's Julie Moos accused its blogger Jim Romenesko of "a pattern of incomplete attribution." The spat was started by an inquiry from Erika Fry, an assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review, who talked to Moos about Romenesko's blog and inconsistencies in the way he used quotes from the stories he was aggregating.

In the end Jim Romenesko was gone, launching his own media website later in the quarter, and Poynter ended up looking foolish and isolated as few media writers backed Moos and Poynter.

In mid-November Amazon began shipping its 7-inch tablet, the Kindle Fire. The tablet has reported sold very well, though tech writers have been less enthusiastic about the actual product. TNM's look at the Kindle Fire came on the 21st, and my thoughts on the tablet haven't changed much: nice price, too small for serious newspaper or magazine app development.

The launch of the tablet, though, continued the further fragmentation of Android, a huge factor in developers continued preference for iOS.

The month ended with the surprise announcement that Time Inc. had turned to Laura Land, the head of Digitas, a digital ad agency, to run its magazine division.

Lang's previous work has all been on the client and agency side, so her lack of publishing experience quickly was noticed by media writers (though all seemed to admit that her digital advertising experience would be hugely beneficial to Time.)

TNM's own report on the hiring was a mess thanks to it being written on my iPhone, as autocorrect changed all the references to "Digitas" to "Digital" – not one of TNM's best moments in 2011.

Rumors of an Apple TV, an actual television set, began in earnest, though most writers failed to take into account that falling price of TV sets.
The election season started to heat up in preparation for the Iowa caucuses on January 3. The New York Times launched its own iPhone app, NYTImes Election 2012, in preparation for the silly season.

The app requires a paid digital subscription, though those who already are subscribing to a NYT product get free access as part of their existing subscription package.

The NYT admitted in mid-December that it was in talks with Halifax Media Holdings to sell its Regional Media Group. The group includes mid-sized dailies such as The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa, Calif., The Gainesville Sun in Gainesville, Fla., and The Tuscaloosa News in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

One week later the sale was announced for the rock bottom price of $143 million.

Earlier this week Sears Holdings said it would close between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores. It publicly identified 79 of those stores on Thursday (list of the stores here in PDF form).

At the same time, ratings agency Fitch downgraded Sears to "CCC" from "B", according to a Reuters report. On Wednesday, Standard & Poor's placed the beleaguered, company's credit rating on review for a possible downgrade.

The AP is reporting the death of Samuel Logan Jr., the publisher of the African-American newspaper the Michigan Chronicle at the age of 78. (Photo of Logan courtesy of the Michigan Chronicle.)

"Sam Logan was more than a Detroit icon, he was a respected pioneer in black journalism who championed the need for coverage of a community not totally served by the mainstream media," Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said.

According to the story in the Detroit Free Press, Logan was born in "Colquit, La., to a family of sharecroppers, Mr. Logan picked cotton as a youth and came to Detroit at 14 with his mother and brother." Logan joined the Chronicle in 1961 after serving in the Army as a paratrooper. Logan worked in the advertising, production and marketing departments before being named publisher inthe mid-'80s.

2011 is ending as it began, with tech and other sites talking about future tablets that will beat out the iPad, and Apple's supposed plans to build a smaller tablet.

Often the same sites that start the rumors are the first to dismiss them, thus being able to be right (as well as wrong).

As for the recurring rumors that Apple will introduce a 7-inch tablet, well, that old song is getting old. I suppose it is possible, just like the Apple television set rumors, but with Apple one thing is sure, you won't hear anything directly from the company until they are ready to launch. (I am also think that any rumor that isn't accompanied by leaked photos can be pretty much dismissed out of hand.)

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Next week marks the two year anniversary of Talking New Media, a website launched a little over three months before Apple shipped its first iPads, but more than a decade after the first newspaper and magazine websites appeared online.

2011 was a very eventful year in world news, but in some ways it was a simply a continuation of 2010 where media critics continued to debate the paid content versus advertising strategies, and where the gurus of aggregation and layoffs, disguised as 'digital first' proponents, continued to hold sway – despite any evidence that their philosophy could translated into profit publishing models.

In early July the phone hacking scandal finally broke big and quickly led to the decision by News International to close its tabloid, News of the World. Eventually both Rupert and James Murdoch had were forced to testify before a committee.

But during the month of July the news just kept coming as new revelations and new consequences appeared: News dropped its bid for BSkyB; Rebekah Brooks, chief executive, resigned, and on and on.

As with most big news stories, Americans looked to The Daily Show for perspective:

Google delisted Belgian newspapers from its search results after losing a lawsuit which claimed that Google did not have the right to post links to their articles without Google paying them, or asking their permission. And so Belgian papers disappeared from search results.

"We regret having to do so. We would be happy to re-include Copiepresse if they would indicate their desire to appear in Google Search and waive the potential penalties," Google spokesman William Echikson said.

Three days later Belgian papers gave Google permission to include them in search results.

Time Inc. said that it will "launch tablet editions for its entire portfolio of 21 titles by year's end." Magazines that would soon have their own tablet editions include InStyle, Real Simple and Entertainment Weekly.
“Having our entire portfolio available on tablets will create a significant new digital reach for our advertisers," said Maurice Edelson, EVP at Time Inc.

Starting next week, in the New Year, Time will begin reporting its digital sales and subscriber information to the Audit Bureau of Circulations for inclusion in its audit reports.

Web apps become all the rage as some media properties attempt to avoid creating native iOS apps. Not surprisingly, new vendors emerge to push the HTML5 apps, just they emerged to push mobile apps.

Other major publishers, such as Meredith, also continued to deepen their commitments to tablet publishing and selling subscriptions through Apple's App Store.

Meanwhile, things were not going so well at HP as the company said it would dump the TouchPad – soon it would dump its CEO.

One publication that was moving in the opposite direction was The Financial Times which had previously launched a web app. The move, which has proved successful, led Apple to dump the FT app from the App Store due to violation of developer rules.

But the real news in August was the continuing Eurozone crisis that was pushing down growth in all of Europe, not just countries at the center of the debt crisis, like Greece.

The best newspaper apps continued to be appear from European – especially German – newspaper publishers. News weekly Die Zeit released a native designed app in mid-September which offered a free issue at launch, but otherwise would charge a subscription fee through iTunes.

One of the best book apps of 2011 appeared in September: Journey to the Exoplanets. The ebook app was the project of the magazine Scientific American and the book publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The third quarter ended with the Amazon unveiling of the 7-inch Kindle Fire. Anticipation was also building for the Apple event scheduled to announcement the new iPhone.

With the year winding down, and many promotional subscriptions coming to an end, the NYT is scrambling to convince many readers to re-up their digital and print subscriptions. But yesterday the Times committed a bit of an "oops" by sending emails to many customers saying their print subscriptions had been cancelled – even when those same readers were never print subscribers.

Our records indicate that you recently requested to cancel your home delivery subscription. Please keep in mind when your delivery service ends, you will no longer have unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps.

We do hope you’ll reconsider.

Later in the day another email was sent saying that the first email had been sent in error – and today the Times posted a correction on its website home page:

The Times mistakenly sent e-mails Wednesday to subscribers and others, erroneously stating that home delivery of the newspaper had been canceled. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Being the week between Christmas and New Years, things are pretty slow in the media world. But on January 3rd the Iowa Caucuses take place, marking the beginning of the primary season. Because of this any bit of news that comes from the campaigns this week is considered big stuff.

This morning the politicos are reporting that the state chairman for the Michele Bachmann campaign has defected over to the Ron Paul campaign. The defection of Kent Sorenson is considered "stunning" news to some. But by next weekend, when all attention leaves Iowa for New Hampshire this will all be forgotten, even if Paul pulls off an upset in Iowa.

Remember, Huckabee won in Iowa four years ago. John McCabe finished fourth and was the eventual nominee.

Are you following the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championships? Probably not if you are an American, or not a avid hockey fan. But the annual event, which always kicks off just after Christmas, is big stuff in Canada, and is quite an exciting event.

The hockey tournament pits the top national teams comprised of players under the age of 20. The event is taking place in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta – last year's event was in Buffalo, New York.

The tournament has been won by the Russians in 2011, the U.S. in 2010, and the Canadians in 2009, with the Swedes also being very competitive.

The U.S. was upset yesterday by the team from Finland, and frankly looked pretty bad (giving the puck away consistently), but they are still among the favorites in the tournament. They must beat the Czechs tomorrow, though, or else face a must win game against Canada on New Year's Eve (the Canadians have looked like the best team in the tournament through two games).

You can check out the tournament if you get the NHL Network (the iPad app will be of no help).

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Next week marks the two year anniversary of Talking New Media, a website launched a little over three months before Apple shipped its first iPads, but more than a decade after the first newspaper and magazine websites appeared online.

2011 was a very eventful year in world news, but in some ways it was a simply a continuation of 2010 where media critics continued to debate the paid content versus advertising strategies, and where the gurus of aggregation and layoffs, disguised as 'digital first' proponents, continued to hold sway – despite any evidence that their philosophy could translated into profit publishing models.

The Onion launched its own iPad app, appropriately enough on April 1st.
Time Warner was forced to remove several channels from its iPad app including FX, Discover Channel and MTV, as networks resisted allowing cable providers extend their services to tablets. Later in the month HBO releases its own iPad app, HBO GO, which will stream content directly to subscribers.

"We believe we have every right to carry the programming on our iPad app," Time Warner said at the time. "But, for the time being, we have decided to focus our iPad efforts on those enlightened programmers who understand the benefit and importance of allowing our subscribers--and their viewers--to watch their programming on any screen in their homes."

Woodwing said in early April that it would make its tablet publishing format, "ofip", open and free of charge. But months later the company would transform itself into solely an enterprise publishing solutions company that would support the Adobe platform.

Near the end of the month Apple finally responds to security concerns that it tracking iPhone user locations. "Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so." The issue quickly goes away.

The company behind the drink Red Bull released its first iPad magazine. The first issue of Red Bulletin featured SF Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum on the cover.

German newspaper Schwäbische Zeitung releases its first iPad app. The app is the first of many released that put most U.S. newspaper publishers to shame. Meanwhile, Metropoli launched a series of replica editions for its Italian weekly newspapers. The divide between app strategies – native design versus replica editions – continued throughout the year.

June started with the announcement that Bill Keller would step down as editor at the NYT, to be replaced by Jill Abramson.
The Financial Times decides to go with a web based app rather than split subscription revenue with Apple. The initial launch was not well executed, but eventually the financial newspaper was able to claim success for its strategy - proving that financial newspapers are in a far better position to create paywalls.

Penguin Group releases app version of On the Road, the Jack Kerouac classic. Penguin had committed to developing apps for the iPad at the time of Apple's tablet announcement, saying that "The definition of the book itself is up for grabs."

Bonnier releases a disappointing tablet edition for its food magazine Saveur. Rather than using the company's own native publishing solution, Mag+, Bonnier instead used a replica solution called MagLight.

The New York Times Company said late yesterday that it had agreed to sell its Regional Media Group to Halifax Media Holdings for the rock bottom price of $143 million.

The newspaper group includes dailies such as The Press Democrat, The Sarasota Herald Tribune, The Gainesville Sun, and The Tuscaloosa News.

The group, which has been under the direction of Michael Golden since 2009, who is also Vice Chairman of The New York Times Co. According to the Times story on the sale, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., chairman of The New York Times Company, said the sale "will enable The New York Times Company to continue our transformation to a digitally focused, multiplatform media company.”

The MediaDecoder blog last week said that adveritsing revenues at the group had been falling precipitously: 30 percent in 2009 to $193 million, and 8.2 percent last year to $177 million. Total revenue was said to be around $264 million (said to be 11 percent of total revenue for the company).

The sales price of $143 million, therefore, represents a one time multiple of revenue of either this year's ad revenue forecast, or the forecast for 2012. Either way, it is an incredibly low price.

Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska announced yesterday that he would not seek reelection. The Democratic Senator would have faced a difficult reelection in a state where he was the only Democrat holding statewide office.

Nelson is the seventh Democrat to announce that he will retire from the Senate, increasing the chances that the Republicans could take over the chamber after the November 2012 election.

The AP said a Times of London story is reporting that the British government will be developing an app for Prime Minister David Cameron's iPad. The app could send statistics and information from government departments, as well as real time news to Cameron's iPad.

I can not provide a direct link to the Times story because the Murdoch paper is behind a solid paywall, preventing non-subscribers from accessing the story.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Next week marks the two year anniversary of Talking New Media, a website launched a little over three months before Apple shipped its first iPads, but more than a decade after the first newspaper and magazine websites appeared online.

2011 was a very eventful year in world news, but in some ways it was a simply a continuation of 2010 where media critics continued to debate the paid content versus advertising strategies, and where the gurus of aggregation and layoffs, disguised as 'digital first' proponents, continued to hold sway – despite any evidence that their philosophy could translated into profit publishing models.

The year started with the tech and media website proclaiming the death of the tablet magazine – really. It may be hard to believe, but with only 10,000 iPads in circulation, the fact that Wired's tablet sales were down to 23,000 an issue was already cause to give up on the new medium (at least according to the critics; many publishers simply moved on).

In January, Sporting News signed a deal with AOL
to takeover Fanhouse.

The Dallas Morning News announced that it would construct its own paywall, following similar announcements from other papers, including the NYT, which had not yet launched its own metered paywall by January. Note: we're still waiting on announcements that these paywalls are successfully leading the expansion, rather than contraction, of newsroom staffs.

"30% is neither a reasonable nor a suitable remuneration for the distributor who only adds a limited value. If Apple wants to take part in the conversation about subscriptions it will have to be at least ten times less that percentage," Lacroix wrote in January.

The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's iPad-only newspaper, was unveiled at an event at the Guggenheim Museum on February 2. The paper initially was offered free of charge.

While the news product's right wing politics have limited its success, The Daily continues on, showing that there are probably enough fans of the Fox News model to keep the product going, at least for a while.

Motorola unveiled the XOOM in February and after a week or so I was able to test it out for myself – I was not impressed.

Random House became the latest big name publisher to agree to adopt the agency model whereby the publisher sets the price for their digital products and the seller (Apple) collects the commission. “The agency model guarantees a higher margin for retailers than did our previous sales terms. We are making this change both as an investment in the successful digital transition of our existing partners and in order to give us the opportunity to forge new retail relationships,” Random House said in a statement at the time.

Apple released iOS 4.3 in March, which brought lots of new goodies, and the AppleTV update added MLB.TV and other apps. Prior to the update, only a select few apps could stream content, but iOS 4.3 allowed AirPlay compliant apps to begin streaming. Soon developers began issuing app updates to include the new features.

Zinio suffered a major meltdown in March, caused by an outage at one of its data centers.

The Boston Herald launched its baseball app
just in time for Opening Day.

The long awaited New York Times paywall finally launched at the end of the month, but the paper made sure many of its most frequent users got through for free, thanks to a deal with the car maker Lincoln. The NYT has bragged that its digital subscriber numbers have soared, but late in December it was announced that its CEO, Janet Robinson, would step down at the end of the year – related? who knows.

The original announcement for the paywall was in May of 2010, by the way.

Apple begins shipping the iPad 2 for delivery on March 17.

Meanwhile, a survey showed that 16 percent of consumers had cancelled their newspaper subscriptions due to the recession.

The Christmas holiday has not been kind to Sears Holdings, the company behind Sears and Kmart, as the company announced that same-store sales had fallen 5.2 percent. Because of this, the company said it plans to close 100 to 120 of its 2,200 stores.

"Given our performance and the difficult economic environment, especially for big-ticket items, we intend to implement a series of actions to reduce on-going expenses," CEO Lou D'Ambrosio said in its announcement.

"While our past practice has been to keep marginally performing stores open while we worked to improve their performance, we no longer believe that to be the appropriate action in this environment," the WSJ reported that the company said in its statement.

Both Berkshire Hathaway and Wrapports LLC completed their acquisitions of their local newspapers: Warren Buffett's Berkshire buying the Omaha World-Herald, and Wrapports, made of up of local PE figures, buying the Chicago Sun-Times.

If you are one of those who believe music was never so good as when it was only available on vinyl records, then you will like what BBC Radio 6 is planning of New Year's Day: the Beeb will be playing on 45 RPM records.

"In a world dominated by digital music, vinyl is a format still close to the hearts of many music lovers and increased sales demonstrate its enduring appeal," said station editor Paul Rodgers, according to the Guardian report.

Of course, the ironic part of all of this is that BBC 6 was launched as a digital only station by the BBC in 2002. The station has been threatened with closure of the past few years as the U.K.'s conservative governments have looked to scale back the BBC.

Sunday, December 25, 2011

New website location for TNM

If you are reading this it is no doubt because you are reading an archive story from Talking New Media. You should be made aware that the site has moved to a new, permanent address: TalkingNewMedia.com